1985
by Joe Hook
Summary: Sequel to 1984, 1985 follows an Oceanic soldier, a rebellious Party member and Goldstein, and their attempt to bring down the Party.
1. PART ONE: Kilburn

**PART ONE**

Kilburn

He was lying flat on his belly upon the wet iron surface, his rifle nestled on his shoulder, pointing around the side of a cannon. The great cylindrical tube of concrete provided perfect protection from the opposing ship. The shouted instructions, the constant gunfire, the crashing of waves: he was oblivious to all of it. All he cared about was the carved Mongolian face he was following through his scope.

 _Crack._

He cursed softly. The Eastasian soldier had inadvertently moved at the precise moment he had fired. As the bullet ricocheted off the metal wall of the stern, the soldier cowered and ducked behind a crate.

He reloaded, not taking his eye from the scope and lined up again. He waited patiently for the soldier to reappear. Water sprayed up from behind him, filling his nostrils with the smell of salt. Minutes passed, and he wondered whether the bastard had scarpered out of sight. Meanwhile, the cannon to his immediate right fired with an ear-splitting bang and the giant black ball crashed into the back of the ship.

 _There._

The Mongolian soldier had been hiding after all. Now he ran in a crouch, no doubt to escape the last cannonball, which must had struck an engine for the rear of the Eastasian ship was in flames. Dense black smoke billowed.

He tracked the soldier along the back of the ship until the man changed direction and lined up perfectly with the scope.

 _Crack._

The soldier crumpled, and was swiftly hauled away by an identical-looking comrade.

'Good shot, Kilburn,' said an approving voice to his right. It was Myers, who was manning the cannon with three others. He had the thickset yet chubby appearance of a military man whose muscle was slowly giving way to fat. 'Looks like she's going down, too.'

He was right. Kilburn watched as the rear of the smoking ship began to tilt backwards; the men on board grabbed onto poles, guns, sides of cabins. The less fortunate cascaded down the ship like marbles and plunged into the ocean. The Eastasian ships were inferior to Oceania's Floating Fortresses in every department: this was the third ship Kilburn and his one thousand comrades had overpowered just that day.

'Alright, hold fire!' bellowed Myers. 'Let her sink.'

The sound of gunfire ceased. In its absence, the crashing of the waves become more prominent, and mingled with the distant cries of doomed Eastasian soldiers.

Kilburn climbed to his feet, wiped the sweat from his brow and looked around. The Floating Fortress, a square kilometre of iron, steel and rubber, was gliding over the water like a mythical beast of the ocean. Guns and cannons pointed in every direction, and men were running around the decks to perform the usual maintenance procedures in preparation for the next battleship that was foolish enough to challenge them. Helicopters roved overhead and touched down on the tarmacked landing strip, which was plastered with the enormous, moustachioed face of Big Brother. Helmet-wearing medics leapt out and attended those who had suffered injuries, although Kilburn was proud to see a distinct lack of dead bodies on deck. It had been another successful victory, although this was merely a tiny step closer in the relentless, abominable and (in Kilburn's eyes) pointless war against Eastasia.


	2. Miller

Miller

Head bowed, Francesca Miller marched along the streets of outer London. Her face was well-hidden both by the upturned collar of her coat and the shadow cast by the round brim of her black bonnet. She would not ordinarily had purchased and worn something so outdated, but it served its purpose well: keeping a low profile and keeping her identity ambiguous was essential.

Her right hand was tucked in her coat pocket, her slender fingers clasped around a pistol. In her left hand she held a briefcase. It was made of strong leather, black and square. Inside the briefcase was a telescreen.

Despite her best efforts, she had drawn a degree of attention from the proles. There were broad women brushing the pavement outside their shops, emaciated men huddled in doorways, children playing football with an abandoned soldier's helmet. Though she did not look up, Fran could sense their wary, curious eyes follow her, wondering where this mysterious, young and beautiful woman was striding so purposefully towards.

She did not resent them. On the contrary, she always took courage whenever she saw the proles. Though they were dirty, ugly and obnoxious, not to mention constantly partaking in drug use, excessive drinking, prostitution and general debauchery, they were human. It was so important to remember that. They loved, they laughed, they sang, they cried, they screamed. None of this was possible for a Party member unless it was politically motivated. The proles were infinitely more human than anyone else.

A red bus trundled past her and came to a grinding halt just as Fran reached the shabby shelter. Two drunkards staggered off the bus and, upon noticing Fran, made a couple of slurred remarks on her figure. She gave them a twinkling smile as she hopped on the bus, and the men fell dumbstruck. The male proles were like a different species to the male Party members, whose celibacy and robotic manners offered zero threat or interest to her. The men in the streets of London, however, were crude, boisterous, but infinitely more fascinating. Besides, if they ever became too crude, or too boisterous, Fran could always threaten them with a bullet through the forehead.

She slipped a dollar to the bus driver and climbed the short set of stairs to the upper level. She sat at the very front, both for the encompassing view of the street, and to keep her face hidden from her fellow commuters. She placed the briefcase on her lap. Now she was safely off the streets, she could breathe a sigh of relief and inwardly reward herself for her efforts. Obtaining the telescreen had taken months of planning. When Goldstein had set the mission for her, she had thought it impossible. But she was a problem-solver. She had been chosen for her cognitive skills, her ability with firearms, and above all, her adeptness at concealing _thoughtcrime._

It had taken perhaps four weeks to locate the ideal telescreen for dismantling and stealing. Four weeks of mental elimination: it could not be a telescreen in any of the Ministries, nor a telescreen that shared a room with another, nor a telescreen attached to wood or brick, or any other material that would display discolouring due to dampness or lack of light in the telescreen's absence.

Rocking gently with the bus's movements, she continued to stare ahead though the wide window at the dull, grey skies, the labyrinth of offices and shops and high-rise flats …

She had eventually found the perfect telescreen in an abandoned sportswear shop in the heart of a murky proles' community in East London. The company had gone into liquidation. The shop was bare and dark, but for the telescreen fixed on the left-hand wall. Though it had no audience, the voice continued to blurt out a stream of encouraging statistics detailing the Party's success in increasing food supply, educated children and military equipment. The telescreen had simply been forgotten about, though that only meant it was ignored.

The first time Fran had seen it, she had merely walked on, as was the sensible choice. When she had set about finding the shop again, she had dyed her hair black, sported a completely different outfit, and spared the telescreen the swiftest of glances as she walked by, to memorise its exact position on the wall.

For months she had studied the shop from every angle. She knew that the longer she postponed the heist, the higher the chance that either the telescreen would be discovered and removed by the police, or it would detect her for what she really was. However, the first possibility frightened her a lot more than the second, so confident was she in her own skills of seeing without being seen.

Finally, on this day, she had entered through the back entrance of the shop. Having memorised when the telescreen made its announcements on a daily basis, she had waited for the loud, sharp voice of the announcer to burst into life before creaking open the back door.

She was in. She had removed her shoes before entering, so her socked feet were silent on the hard flooring. Knowing that the announcement would last two minutes before lapsing back into silence, Fran wasted not a second.

'… increased by fifteen grams per person. Also, cotton production is up by twelve percent from last year, the highest yield of any harvested fibre in Oceanic history …'

She crept closer, until she was standing, still hidden, alongside the telescreen. Against her will, her heart had leapt to her throat and she spent three seconds controlling her breathing. From her pocket she extracted from her briefcase a simple-looking instrument: half a metre in length, made of steel, it most closely resembled the tapering blade of a huge chisel.

Carefully, with a steady hand, she slipped the wide, razor-thin end of the rod in between telescreen and wall. She had, of course, investigated exactly what it was that attached the telescreen so securely to the wall. Screws were too obvious; superglue and other adhesives were equally fallible. The answer was magnetic force. A steel plate was buried in the wall before the installation of every telescreen, and the telescreen simply stuck to it. Convincing in appearance, practical in execution, but by no means immortal: much like the Party they served.

The suction of the magnetic force was greater than Fran had anticipated. She forced the butt end of the rod with the heel of her hand, grimacing with the effort. The rod was flat against the wall, so there was no leverage to employ.

'MiniPax reports a greater arsenal amongst its South African ranks than ever before. Production of grenades has increased by twenty percent, while …'

Fran clenched her teeth to prevent a groan escaping her as she shoved the rod deeper. She reckoned on another thirty seconds, and if the damned thing wouldn't yield by then, she'd have to come back another day.

Without warning, an ear-splitting scream issued from the telescreen like some ghastly siren. Simultaneously, with a grunt of effort that undoubtedly went unmissed by the wailing telescreen (she could visualise the Thought Police clustering around the twin screen back in the Ministry of Love even now), Fran succeeded in removing the telescreen from its steel plate. The telescreen crashed to the ground, face down, though still issuing that everlasting, hellish scream. Quick as a flash, Fran thrust the thing inside her briefcase, snapped the latches shut, and silence fell.

Even recounting this event made Fran's heart quicken. As the bus grinded to a halt and she trotted downstairs and onto the pavement, she thought how lucky she had been. No one had come running; no one, it seemed, had recognised the telescreen's siren. The noise, upon reflection, had been music to Fran's ears: it showed the Party had a fear. It showed the Party couldn't afford to allow a telescreen fall into the wrong hands. That scream had felt as though Fran had inflicted pain directly upon the Party. She hid her smile in her upturned collar.

She was outside London by now. Tarmac underfoot became grass, concrete and steel became brick and iron. Her destination lay five minutes away. She was excited to see the reception she'd get when they learned of her success. The computer technicians – _geeks_ , as she called them – would practically snatch the telescreen from her in their eagerness to set about dismantling it. Goldstein, unfortunately, would not be there in person. For obvious reasons, he could not stay in one place for more than a day, so he tended to move from branch to branch, and he was like a deity or a martyr to those lucky enough to be graced by his presence.

Finally, she reached the old barn which belonged to one of the sub-leaders of the organisation. She stepped inside the dusty building and approached a large aluminium milk churn. She shuffled the heavy thing across the straw-covered floor, revealing a trapdoor: this she lifted, and clambered down a ladder.

She was in a small lobby-like area underground. Brushing straw from her coat, she straightened up and pressed the buzzer on the door in front of her.

A voice spoke, fuzzy and official, but nothing like the telescreen announcer.

'State your name and purpose.'

'Francesca Miller, Operator for the Brotherhood: Einstein branch. By order of Emmanuel Goldstein, I was tasked to obtain a functioning telescreen without detection. I have succeeded.'


	3. Goldstein

Goldstein

 _To the Party,_

 _True to my word, this is your daily update on the progress being made by the Brotherhood. We unveiled a new branch in Johannesburg this morning. The ceremony was subdued, as I'm sure you can understand – nothing like your recent Hate Week celebrations. However, I am told the Johannesburg branch is recruiting a new member every hour. The Brotherhood continues to grow._

 _Still no joy with the telescreens. But I am patient. Our best bet in my estimation is Francesca Miller, owing to both the secrecy of the telescreen in question and her unparalleled skills in espionage. Once we have the stolen telescreen, the cogs of my plan will start turning._

 _Be ready for war – and don't underestimate my use of the word war. I am not referring to the psychological war you fight against the proletariat. I do not mean the war of supplies at the borders of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. I am speaking of men giving their lives to end the lives of the men at the top of the glass pyramids in London. We are developing military weapons the scale of which you cannot begin to imagine, weapons that can bring the Ministries crashing down at the push of a button._

 _You may feel I am taunting you. No – every word of this letter is factual. As you may recall from my first letter to you, my stubborn use of Truth is my most powerful weapon against you. Truth to the Brotherhood is as lies are to the Party. We collapse without Truth, but the Party collapses with it. And that day is looming closer than you think. I am an old man, but I will live to see the day the Party implodes._

 _This is not a threat. This is Truth. This is Goldstein._

Emmanuel Goldstein leant back in his chair, inhaling deeply through his nose, and took a gulp of brandy. The room was lit only by twin lamps on the walls and a candle on Goldstein's desk. The Brotherhood could not afford to use electricity, either in the financial sense or the risk-taking sense. The Party could track them down the second they discovered an unauthorised power recipient.

Goldstein set his pencil down and re-read his letter. The wrinkled eyes darted from side to side from behind square spectacles. His iron-grey hair stuck out at random angles, heightening his air of eccentricity, perhaps an external indication of the brilliant mind within.

After a few minutes, he removed his glasses. As usual, writing these letters was extremely cathartic. He would have died from stress years ago had he not had this outlet to vent.

Very slowly, he inched the letter closer to the candle, until the corner caught light. What he wouldn't give to actually send these letters to the Party! As he watched the paper black and curl with the usual sense of helpless regret, Goldstein for a second pictured those bland, expressionless faces falter with genuine shock, with genuine _fear_ … alas, it was fruitless fantasy. To send the letters would be to tie his own noose. They would trace the letter to its source with ease with their fingerprint-recognition machines. Everything he had so carefully constructed with the Brotherhood would vanish in the vacuum of doublethink, as though it had never existed.

Still, the letters helped. It made the infinite, monstrous complexity of the Party slightly more manageable in his head. It reminded him how far the Brotherhood had come. It kept him sane. He wrote one letter every day, which was a feat in itself, given how constantly busy he was. It was like keeping a diary, albeit a diary that died every day.

The letter had dissolved into a small mound of ash on the desk. At that moment, noises of commotion rose outside Goldstein's door. He slipped his glasses into his breast pocket, hastily brushed the ash onto the floor, so that it trickled through the gaps between the old wooden floorboards, and rose to his feet. Despite his age, he was tall, over six foot, with a body stronger and more agile than a man twenty years his junior.

Before he could reach the door, however, it burst open. The babbling voices from the lobby grew twice as loud.

'Mr Goldstein,' said the man who had opened the door. His name escaped Goldstein (he had no hope of remembering the name of everyone who worked for him), but he was one of the clerical workers in the Einstein branch. His excitement was palpable. 'Agent Miller's back.'

'Fantastic,' muttered Goldstein, immediately contaminated with the man's excitement. He followed him into the packed lobby, where the fifty or so workers were gathered round the long table, upon which something of great interest had been placed.

Automatically, the crowd turned, spotted Goldstein, and parted so that he had a view of both the object and its deliverer. The object was a solid black briefcase. The deliverer, Francesca Miller, froze at the sight of Goldstein, a reaction he was accustomed to. Her eyes were alight and her cheeks flushed. She clearly hadn't expected his presence.

'Mr Goldstein,' she said breathlessly, with a small curtsey.

'Ms Miller,' Goldstein smiled, bowing his head. 'This looks very much like good news. Please, do not keep us in suspense.'

'Yes, sir,' replied Miller, beaming widely; then, to the room at large: 'I must ask for complete silence, lest the Party recognises your voice. It's still working, you see.'

The murmurings grew quieter, then disappeared completely, although the sense of anticipation in the room only increased. The clicks of Miller unlocking the briefcase sounded twice as loud in the silence. She lifted the lid and there was a collective intake of breath at the sight of the downturned telescreen –

At once the demonic screams filled the room, making everyone jump and causing a few to yelp out. As they stuck their fingers in their ears, one of the men nearest to the telescreen wielded a screwdriver. At Goldstein's quick nod of approval, he set about unwinding the four screws on the corner of the telescreen. After a minute of the endless, ear-splitting siren, the man prised away the steel back of the telescreen, then detected a slim blue box within: the battery. This he unhooked, at which point silence fell.

The man with the screwdriver let out a triumphant laugh, which triggered a cacophony of cheers and whoops and high-fives. As they all regrouped around the dead telescreen, Miller slipped through the crowd towards Goldstein.

'You've done remarkably well,' said Goldstein when she reached him. 'I don't underestimate the danger you put yourself in to obtain that.'

'I thought I was done for,' admitted Miller. 'As soon as that bloody siren went off …'

'I did wonder if the Party was paranoid enough to put a defence mechanism into their telescreens, but I would have banked on something a little more sophisticated. But this is a giant step forward. That will keep our technicians busy until they find a way to hack into the telescreen network. In the meantime I will call off the other heists across the city … unless you see a reason not to?'

'It might be worth keeping one spare,' said Miller. 'Any more than that might raise suspicion.'

'Well said.' Goldstein ran a hand through his hair, driving it even wilder. 'Well, you may or may not like to hear this, Miller, but this is just the start. Things will only get more dangerous from here.'


End file.
